An attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Who's Afraid of Israeli Democracy?

Haven't you heard, Israeli democracy is in danger. That's the latest media talking point on Israel. And where is the threat to Israeli democracy coming from? From its democracy. Confused? That's probably because you think that the word 'democracy' has something to do with the popular vote and the right of every person, irrespective of their religion, country of origin or accent to vote for the party of their choice. As misguided as the vote may be. When it actually means the right of media pundits, academics and elitist judges to dictate how the country is run based on the values of a entitled upper class scrambling to hold on to power. Out of their concern for Israeli democracy, the American media and the Obama Administration have been pressuring Netanyahu to "broaden" his coalition by replacing the Shas party of Middle Eastern Jews and the Israel is Our Home party of Russian immigrants, with the Kadima party. Traditionally calls for a broader coalition usually mean one that represents more of the country. But due to their fear for "Israeli democracy", this is actually a call for a coalition that represents fewer sectors of the country.

Liberals who usually value diversity in everything, want to close the door on a broad coalition in Israel. Why? Because Middle Eastern Jews and Russian immigrants tend to be right-wing, and diversity is only a legitimate value when it serves to promote the left. But when the right wins elections, suddenly the pundits rush to their keyboards to type out an urgent telegraphic warning. DEMOCRACY THREATENED BY DEMOCRACY. STOP. DEMOCRACY MUST BE ABOLISHED TO PRESERVE DEMOCRACY. STOP. But if democracy threatens democracy, it's not democracy that's under fire. It's the insistence of a small group of powerful people on getting their way regardless of what the public wants.

Atlantic shill Jeffrey Goldberg shows off this Orwellian grammar when he warns that "wide swaths of Israeli Jewish society" are undermining the country's democracy. And he lists Orthodox Jews, Middle-Eastern Jews, Settlers and Russian Jews. In other words the majority of the country. And how is this terrible majority of Israelis undermining the country's democracy. Well Edgar, they're going to the polls and voting for the parties of their choice. And then the parties represent them in the Knesset and in the government coalition. Clearly this threat to democracy cannot be understated.

Unsurprisingly Jeffrey Goldberg's list of the "Fearsome 4" are all associated with the right. Even more unsurprisingly they all represent ethnic and religious minorities that deviate from the establishment left's native born secularism. Goldberg's screed is a familiar one to anyone who has spoken to an upper class leftist complaining about religious people moving into his neighborhood, even as his face turns with red outrage at the thought of anyone from the working class complaining about Muslims moving into their neighborhood.

It's a familiar enough story. 19th century American progressives who fought for the rights of slaves, hated and agitated against Irish Catholic immigrants as threats to democracy. Their tolerance which seemed to extend very far, stopped dead cold when it encountered people who were enough like them, for their otherness to be infuriating, rather than exotic. 19th century New York Jews reacted much the same way to the flood of Russian Jewish immigrants bringing with them their old school religion, quirky mannerisms and Yiddish dialect. And they reacted, much like the Labor elite did to the arrival of Middle Eastern Jews, with repugnance and a calculated attempt to strip away their religion and their culture in the name of civilizing them.

But despite all the radiation exposures, taunts and police batons, Middle Eastern and Russians Jews have still not properly civilized to the standards of the faculty of Hebrew University and the Supreme Court. They still insist on viewing Muslims with suspicion (it must be racism). They want Israel to be a strong country that can stand up for itself (clearly racism). They think that laws should be made for people, rather than for the approval of the EU. And they want to see an Israel that is more democratic, less bureaucratic and less subject to the control of the very elites who discriminate against them (have you ever heard such racism in your life). Clearly they are a threat to Israeli democracy. Or rather the part of it that substitutes its own undemocratic exercise of power in place of democracy.

The fall of the Labor elite began when a racist crack at its own campaign rally, helped lead to Begin's victory. Since then every left wing party still thinks that it can win the Sefardi or Russian vote by pushing one of their own hacks, paid to conduct outreach to those communities, onto the party list. And when they end up with bupkes, they blame (what else) racism. Then out come the op-eds warning that these people are a grave threat to Israeli democracy. Like Pharaoh regarding the Children of Israel, they whisper gravely that this rabble will soon outnumber them. And what happens then? Prime Minister Lieberman? President Ovadya Yosef? Settlers with their own handheld nuclear weapons? Cats and dogs playing the balalaika with prayer amulets around their neck on the other side of the Jordan? And what will Europe think then? Ribbono Shel Olam, what will the Washington Post think?

This carnival of bigotry resounds in an echo chamber, as the declining left elite whispers to American journalists and diplomats about the dangers of "all those people". The ones who didn't live in tents or go to Mapai meetings with my grandfather. Who haven't read Amos Oz, don't care about the annual Rabin anniversaries or worse yet go to their Daf Yomi class without a thought for his legacy. That vast majority of the country that just doesn't fit into the vision of a decrepit left that long ago lost the country, but still hasn't given up hope of taking it down with them.

And so Atlantic's token pro-Israel blogger who so loveth the Jewish state that he recently called on American Jews not to donate money to Israel after its devastating Carmel forest fire, does his part for the echo chamber. After a previous post celebrating Jerusalem's diversity, he delivers one warning that Israel's diversity will be the death of it yet. The difference is that his Jerusalem post celebrated Israel's non-Jewish diversity. But his "Fearsome 4" condemns Israel's Jewish diversity. Like Israel's celebrity leftists who shamelessly don yellow stars to protest the deportation of African illegal aliens, while simultaneously calling for the deportation of Jewish residents of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria-- it's about demarcating the lines of permissible bigotry.

And you can even see their point. They need African illegal aliens to clean their houses, just as they need Muslims to work cheaply doing errands for them-- but what use do they have for the bearded settler who won't mop their floor for a few coins, but incites the hatred of their comrades in the Brussels branch of the Socialist International? The despised Sefardi and the contemptible Russian refused to be the members of their lower class. They refused to take a few handouts to pull the lever for Labor. Instead they insisted on democracy. And that makes them a threat to democracy.

Labor is defunct. The narrative of the right is the dominant one. Why? Because the left has lost all touch with reason, abandoned even the pretext of national security and dived so deep into corruption that it hasn't hit bottom yet. The Kadima party that Obama and the foreign media would like to see in Netanyahu's coalition is the creature of two Prime Ministers, one of whom has been indicted, and another of whom escaped indictment only by virtue of being in a coma. It is a party that exists only because its mutually corrupt cretins haven't decided which other party to leave it for yet. It is currently led by the protege of the man who may be the first Israeli Prime Minister to go to jail. It is not left-wing by way of ideas, but because it hasn't thought of anything else it should be. And its otherwise brainless leader knows that the only way to the top is if Obama pressures Netanyahu into giving her what she wants to enter the coalition.

The pundits would have you believe that Israeli democracy is threatened by Ovadya Yosef, the local version of Pat Robertson, and that crazed lunatic Avigdor Lieberman, who recently stated firmly that Israel shouldn't even discuss apologizing to Turkey for the confrontation with the Islamist fanatics on board the Mari Marmara. Yet the same media that rushed to hiss and spit on Lieberman for stating the obvious, praised Olmert as a wise and prudent leader for saying the same thing. What's the difference between insanity and wisdom? Political affiliation of course.

Israel's democracy isn't threatened by the refugees from the Muslim World and the Soviet Union that it took in. Those refugees are the reason for its existence. It is not threatened by the rising number of religious Jews either, whether in Jerusalem or Judea. A country cannot survive for long without religion. And Religious Zionism has become the backbone of Zionism. It is however threatened by a small number of powerful elites who use their judicial positions, their newspaper columns and their academic posts to bar the door to democracy. It is the likes of Labor's Haim Ramon, who famously screamed, "If you do not accept our democracy, then we will crush you"-- who are the real threat.

All these columns warning about the danger to Israeli democracy from the majority of its citizens are nothing but kinder, gentler echoes of Ramon, defining their way as "democracy" and the way of the people would like to go as something else entirely. When all the Goldbergs warn about the danger of a majority of minorities upstaging their liberal consensus, they are preaching a quieter bigotry. Not the noisy slur or the wrongful arrest, but the roundabout insinuation. No direct statement that Sefardim are primitive barbarians, Russians are all prostitutes or Orthodox Jews are fanatically primitive. Instead the same thing is accomplished by labeling them all as threats to democracy. By castigating their elected officials as primitive, fanatical and barbaric. It's the same message, but delivered in a classier way.

All this concern about Israeli democracy is an inherent admission that one man's vote is not as good as another. That the dot com entrepreneur just back from Malta casting his ballot for Meretz is an informed voter who is a blessing to Israeli democracy. And the darkie, dati or russkie casting his vote for Shas, Yachdut HaTorah or Yisrael Beitenu is an ignorant blight on democracy who needs a bath and a good beating, not necessarily in that order.

American liberal Jews who work themselves in a lather over Israeli democracy are unconsciously echoing those same prejudices. And treating democracy as a fixed value that embodies their values. By making democracy coequal with liberalism, they show that they are the real threat to democracy.

Liberal Jews who worry whether they'll be able to remain Zionists if they disapprove of Israel's government are missing the point. Zionism is not the endorsement of a government, but of a right. It is not the process by which the country is run, but the inspiration for its existence. One does not need to respect a government, to respect the process that elects governments. A country may be founded for ideals, but even the smallest country is still a vast brawling mass of people that changes from generation to generation. Anyone who thinks that they have to be able to approve of Israel in every generation in order to be a Zionist might as well opt out now.

Israel isn't one thing or another, it's many of them. It's the source of many of the world's religious ideas, and the place where they all get together to meet and fight it out. It's breathtakingly socialist and capitalist, secular and religious, multicultural to a ridiculous degree and just as prejudiced. You can meet Japanese Rabbis, Jewish anti-semites and people who fancy themselves the reincarnation of King David, without having to travel more than a kilometer or two. Which is to say that Israel is a lot like America or the more democratic parts of the world, and so unlike so much of the undemocratic Middle East, where differences are punished and dissent is a crime. And that is exactly what Israel would turn into if the professional worriers for its democracy got their way.

Zionism, like every national movement, is an idealistic springboard for a real society. And real societies are ugly. They have their grand moments and their ugly ones. For every noble speech, there is an ignoble scandal. And for every virtue, there is a crime. For those who worry so fastidiously for Israeli democracy, there is a simple enough solution short of demonizing most of the country because it doesn't vote your way. Move there and vote for yourself.

We are hypocrites and cowards - we take freedom for granted as it is eroding underneath our feet‏

Message to offended Muslims

A GOOD, TRUE STORY NOT KNOWN BY MANY.....Air Force.

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

What happened?

Mark Hasten Tribute Video Touro College

Housing Quiz

The Record-so far...!

CBS special on Bengazi

Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Sally Nelson

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Islamization on the move

"What we are dealing with is Islamization. Islamization is the imposition of ideological norms in increasing severity. Like Nazification, it transforms a society by remaking it in its own image from the largest to the smallest of details."Daniel Greenfield

Toronto rejects Anti-Israel Ads...

Shrinking Lands

Why Israel opposes international forces in the jordan valley/

/why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/

Islam is Islam, And That’s It

Back in 2007, when confronted with the phrase “moderate Islam”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously responded: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and annotating this video: View video at http://gatesofvienna.net/

There's no racist like a liberal racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vz4PjxSmtoI

Ex-Navy SEAL Drops Bombshell On FOX: Says Government is Creating Conditions to Impose Martial Law R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuds14OBiE#t=156

American surprise

The Nairobi Mall Massacre

Ninh Chu Ninh Chu

Islam Untied

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE: The Lynching

What-are you against peace?

Sydney Wake Up The Horrific Muslim Infiltration Of Britain - Luton

Kerry: 'Core Issue of Instability ... Is the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'‏

Kerry is no friend. By endorsing the "Arab peace initiative" he shows his true intentions and beliefs . And by endorsing linkage he shows that he is either a liar or a fool.Syria is on fire, Egypt is at best incredibly unstable and this is due to Israel? It is out in the open!

A word to left-wing students

In their own words-ru listening?

"The lesson these Islamist groups appear to be drawing from events in Egypt is that democratic engagement with opponents is pointless. And that doesn't bode well for countries with strong Islamist movements..."

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare

Another Democratic slogan blown to h....

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

When nations and cultures ignore the early warning signs of the infiltration of radical Islam

The UK has 85 sharia courts. France has over 750 “no go zones,” Muslim enclaves where even French police don’t enter.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk&feature=email

No such thing as "Islamophobia"

However, if you do not want your positions challenged or criticized or even researched, make up a new "phobia"-shout it long enough and some "people", agenda driven, will use it. Ay, yes, the false term does keep many, many financially rewarded-follow the money.gs don morris, Ph.D.

Khader Adnan: Leader of Islamic jihad or innocent baker?

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.More...

Omar Barghouti's Propaganda at USC on January 12, 2012

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’ -- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.Clare M. Lopez

Americans are opening their eyes

Advertisers fleeing All-American Muslim 'propaganda'The American people are seeing through the propaganda piece that is TLC's All-American Muslim reality/dawah show, and responsible advertisers are fleeing in droves. The show aims to combat a trumped-up problem, "Islamophobia," by presenting Muslims who are just ordinary folk, and

Why Islam is Incompatible with Western Law

Col. Allen West answers a question on muslim terror

Challah's Gaza Rocket Counter

This Month:4Last Month:191

This Year: 562

Total since 2002: 12055

Cease fire Hamas style!!

Thanks http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/

"Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia" was a politically manipulative coinage designed to silence critics of Islamic supremacism.It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia.

10 Unknown West Bank Facts

Liberals Redefine "Extremism" and the "Political Center"

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist.The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Don’t ever call it ‘West Bank’ again

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Who do the territories belong to?

The legal borders of Israel under international law

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror YeminiIn 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

How Liberals Argue

Hebrew Univ-you rock!!

Judea and Samaria are not "occupied" lands-why?

Judea-Samaria were not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland but were recognized as part of the Jewish National Home recognized by San Remo and the League of Nations [1920, 1922] and by the UN charter [article 80; 1945].

"Political Correctness."

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."Texas A&M

Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul on the climate issues

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

WHAT Golda Meir actually said...

"When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir June 15, 1969: Interview in the UK Sunday Times

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member